The Dance of Fire and Ice

In the coldest climates, flash-freezing and hidden hazards make the job of fighting flame all the more perilous

By

Bill Streever

Jan. 25, 2013 8:36 p.m. ET

'When your earlobes blister," firefighters sometimes joke, "you're too close to the flames." And in the Far North, they sometimes joke about being too far from the flames, out in the cold. But winter for firefighters in the coldest climates is no laughing matter.

It was misery and peril as usual for more than 200 firefighters this week in Chicago. With temperatures around 10 degrees, they extinguished a fire in an abandoned warehouse. Afterward, even as water used to fight the fire froze on the ruins,...